Wedding woes abound as crackdown continues

NEW DELHI: Right in the middle of the marriage season, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to remove `500 and `1,000 notes might put marriage plans in jeopardy for the next few months.

The move has affected weddings, usually a big cash affair. Cash crunch has forced people to scale down lavish preparations, said wedding planners and banquet hall owners.

The annual wedding business is worth `1,00,000 crore in India, and is growing at 25%-30%, according to industry estimates. The cost of a wedding ranges from `5 lakh to `5 crore.

An event manager, who didn’t want to be named, said, “My clients have even requested me to accept old banned notes.”

A senior executive at an event management company at Barakhamba Road here said, “We are yet to decide whether we can accept the payment in the old money as it should not create problem for us while depositing banks. But what is stopping us is that we can’t accept the payment without giving bills.”Another Connaught Place based event management firm, Sun Events, raised similar concerns.

Event planners said that in some cases, families who had earlier chosen per plate costs of `2,000 to `2,500 have requested to reduce them to between `700 and `1,000. “Some clients have also asked to reduce the decoration budget, DJ cost, stage rotation cost, booze and other expenses…With less cash and no way of accepting old notes, it is a crisis as clients don’t want to pay by cheque,” said Jeevan Mehra, manager at a West Delhibased banquet hall, Petals, which is booked to organise at least three weddings every week this month.